Legal Question in Employment Law in California

It depends. If the employee manual or other documentation of paid holidays says that Christmas and New Year's Day are paid holidays, and the plant historically has been open on the 24th, 26th, 31st and 2nd, and employees have been paid for the 25th and 1st, there is a case to be made that employees who worked up to the date of the plant furlough relied on that as part of their compensation for the work performed up to the shut-down and therefore they should be paid. On the other hand, it can be argued that if those days were not holidays and the plant were shut for two weeks there would be no pay, so there is no holiday pay. The core legal principal is that you cannot take away earned compensation, but you can change (including decreasing) pay, hours and benefits going forward at any time. So the question is whether those holidays were "earned" prior to the furlough or not. My educated guess is that they are not considered earned until they pass while you are employed under an agreement to pay for them, just as you wouldn't be paid for them if you were fired or quit before those days, and if the employer says ahead of time "we're not paying for them" you have the option to quit or live with it. Ultimately, however, I'm afraid you are not going to find any definitive answer on this. It is not something that has been legislated or litigated to an appeals court decision. You would have to take it up on a wage claim and see what the Labor Commission does with it.

I agree completely with Mr. McCormick.

You should check with your union representative, if you have one. Text in the most recent employee manual also will be informative.

Best of luck to you.